1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to outdoor cooking stoves and, more particularly, is concerned with an outdoor cooking stove assembly which is collapsible and portable.
2. Description of the Prior Art
People who spend time in the outdoors away from any kitchen or restaurant facilities generally need to eat like those who never go far from civilization. Many of these people, like most of us, prefer to eat cooked foods rather than uncooked or dried foods, even when miles away from the nearest road and when miles more away from the closest market or eatery. Portable cooking stoves are generally needed in order to prepare cooked foods in the outdoors. This is due to many backcountry camp sites in the United States not allowing fires, wood being hard to find and collect to have fires in many places where fires are allowed, and stoves being easier to use for cooking than fires, among other reasons.
Various portable cooking stoves have been developed over the years. Many of these stoves, however, are large and heavy and difficult to transport due to their size and weight. More compact portable cooking stoves have also been developed. Representative examples of such compact portable cooking stoves are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,508,095 to Bloechel, U.S. Pat. No. 4,548,192 to Hsu and U.S. Pat. No. 4,696,282 to Incitti. While these and other prior art compact portable cooking stoves may operate satisfactorily under the specific conditions for which they were designed, none of them seem to provide an optimum combination of cooking power, compactness and efficiency for cooking in the outdoors.
Consequently, a need exists for innovations in compact portable cooking stoves which will provide a more effective solution for cooking in the outdoors than is found in the prior art and without introducing any new problems in the process.